Obrázky na stránke
PDF
ePub

ingly, if at all, exercised his interest with him in behalf of his own relations.

are generally found in the hands of the avaricious, whose insatiable hunger after preferWith respect to the advice you are required ment proves them unworthy of any at all. to give a young lady, that she may be properly They attend much to the regular payment of instructed in the manner of keeping the sab- their dues, but not at all to the spiritual inbath, I just subjoin a few hints that have oc- terests of their parishioners. Having forgot cured to me upon the occasion, not because their duty, or never known it, they differ I think you want them, but because it would in nothing from the laity, except their outseem unkind to withhold them. The sabbath ward garb and their exclusive right to the then, I think, may be considered, first, as a desk and pulpit. But when pluralities seek commandment no less binding upon modern the man instead of being sought by him, Christians, than upon ancient Jews, because and when the man is honest, conscientious, the spiritual people amongst them did not and pious, careful to employ a substitute, in think it enough to abstain from manual occu- those respects, like himself; and, not conpations upon that day, but, entering more tented with this, will see with his own eyes deeply into the meaning of the precept, al- that the concerns of his parishes are decently lotted those hours they took from the world and diligently administered; in that case, conto the cultivation of holiness in their own sidering the present dearth of such characters souls, which ever was, and ever will be, a duty in the ministry, I think it an event advanta incumbent upon all who ever heard of a sab-geous to the people, and much to be desired bath, and is of perpetual obligation both upon Jews and Christians: (the commandment, therefore, enjoins it; the prophets have also enforced it; and in many instances, both scriptural and modern, the breach of it has been punished with a providential and judicial severity, that may make by-standers tremble :) secondly, as a privilege, which you well know how to dilate upon, better than I can tell you: thirdly, as a sign of that covenant, by which believers are entitled to a rest that yet remaineth; fourthly, as a sine qua non of the Christian character: and, upon this head, I should guard against being misunderstood to mean no more than two attendances upon public worship, which is a form complied with by thousands who never kept a sabbath in their lives. Consistence is necessary to give substance and solidity to the whole. To sanctify the day at church, and to trifle it away out of church, is profanation, and vitiates all. After all could I ask my catechamen one short question-"Do you love the day, or do you not? If you love it, you will never inquire how far you may safely deprive yourself of the enjoyment of it. If you do not love it, and you find yourself obliged in conscience to acknowledge it, that is an alarming symptom, and ought to make you tremble. If you do not love it, then it is a weariness to you, and you wish it was over. The ideas of labor and rest are not more opposite to each other than the idea of a sahbath and that dislike and disgust with which it fills the souls of thousands to be obliged to keep it. It is worse than bodily labor."

W. C.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN.
Olney, April 6, 1780.
was, any more

My dear Friend,-I neve

by all who regret the great and apparent want of sobriety and earnestness among the clergy.* A man who does not seek a living merely as a pecuniary emolument has no need, in my judgment, to refuse one because it is so. He means to do his duty, and by doing it he earns his wages. The two rectories being contiguous to each other, and following easily under the care of one pastor, and both so near to Stock that you can visit them without difficulty as often as you please, I see no reasonable objection, nor does your mother. As to the wry-mouthed sneers and illiberal misconstructions of the censorious, I know no better shield to guard you against them than what you are already furnished with-a clear and unoffended conscience.

I am obliged to you for what you said upon the subject of book-buying, and am very fond of availing myself of another man's pocket, when I can do it creditably to myself and without injury to him. Amusements are necessary in a retirement like mine, espe cially in such a sable state of mind as I labor under. The necessity of amusement makes me sometimes write verses-it made me a carpenter, a bird-cage maker, a gardener— and has lately taught me to draw, and to draw too with such surprising proficiency in the art, considering my total ignorance of it two months ago, that, when I show your mother my productions, she is all admiration and applause.

You need never fear the communication of what you entrust to us in confidence. You know your mother's delicacy on this point sufficiently, and as for me, I once wrote a Connoisseurt upon the subject of secretkeeping, and from that day to this I believe I have never divulged one.

A happy change has occurred since this period, and the revival of piety in the Church of England must be perceptible to every observer.-Ed.

+ His meaning is, he contributed to the "Connoisseur"

than yourself, a friend to pluralities; they an essay or letter on this subject.

[blocks in formation]

Since I wrote last, we have had a visit from I did not feel myself vehemently disposed to receive him with that complaisance from which a stranger generally infers that he is welcome. By his manner, which was rather bold than easy, I judged that there was no occasion for it, and that it was a trifle which, if he did not meet with, neither would he feel the want of. He has the air of a travelled man, but not of a travelled gentleman is quite delivered from that reserve which is so common an ingredient in the English character, yet does not open himself gently and gradually, as men of polite behavior do, but bursts upon you all at once. He talks very loud, and when our poor little robins hear a great noise, they are immediately seized with an ambition to surpass itthe increase of their vociferation occasioned an increase of his, and his in return acted as a stimulus upon theirs-neither side entertained a thought of giving up the contest, which became continually more interesting to our ears during the whole visit. The birds however survived it, and so did we. They perhaps flatter themselves they gained a complete victory, but I believe Mr.- could have killed them both in another hour.

W. C.

I am

TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. Olney, May 3, 1780. Dear Sir,-You indulge me in such a variety of subjects, and allow me such a latitude of excursion in this scribbling employment, that I have no excuse for silence. much obliged to you for swallowing such boluses as I send you, for the sake of my gilding, and verily believe I am the only man alive, from whom they would be welcome to a palate like yours. I wish I could make them more splendid than they are, more alluring to the eye, at least, if not more pleasing to the taste; but my leaf-gold is tarnished, and has received such a tinge from the vapors that are ever brooding over my mind, that I think it no small proof of your partiality to me that you will read my letters. I am not fond of long-winded metaphors; I have always observed that they halt at the latter end of their progress, and so does mine. I deal much in ink, indeed, but not

such ink as is employed by poets and writers of essays. Mine is a harmless fluid, and guilty of no deceptions but such as may prevail, without the least injury, to the person imposed on. I draw mountains, valleys, woods, and streams, and ducks, and dabchicks. I admire them myself, and Mrs. Unwin admires them, and her praise and my praise put together are fame enough for me. Oh! I could spend whole days and moonlight nights in feeding upon a lovely prospect! My eyes drink the rivers as they flow. If every human being upon earth could think for one quarter of an hour as I have done for many years, there might, perhaps, be many miserable men among them, but not an unawakened one would be found from the arctic to the antarctic circle. At present, the difference between them and me is greatly to their advantage. I delight in baubles, and know them to be so; for, viewed without a reference to their author, what is the earth, what are the planets, what is the sun itself, but a bauble? Better for a man never to have seen them, or to see them with the eyes of a brute, stupid and unconscious of what he beholds, than not to be able to say, "The Maker of all these wonders is my friend!" Their eyes have never been opened to see that they are trifles; mine have been, and will be till they are closed forever. They think a fine estate, a large conservatory, a hothouse, rich as a West Indian garden, things of consequence, visit them with pleas ure, and muse upon them with ten times more. I am pleased with a frame of four lights, doubtful whether the few pines it contains will ever be worth a farthing; amuse myself with a green-house, which Lord Bute's gardener could take upon his back, and walk away with; and when I have paid it the accustomed visit, and watered it, and given it air, I say to myself "This is not mine, 'tis a plaything lent me for the present, I must leave it soon." W. C.

TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ.

Olney, May 6, 1780. My dear Friend,-I am much obliged to you for your speedy answer to my queries. I know less of the law than a country attor ney, yet sometimes I think I have almost as much business. My former connexion with the profession has got wind, and though I earnestly profess, and protest, and proclaim it abroad, that I know nothing of the matter, they cannot be persuaded to believe, that a head once endowed with a legal periwig can ever be deficient in those natural endowments it is supposed to cover. I have had the good fortune to be nce or twice in the right, which, added to the cheapness of a gratui

tous counsel, has advanced my credit to a degree I never expected to attain in the capacity of a lawyer. Indeed, if two of the wisest in the science of jurisprudence may give opposite opinions on the same point, which does not unfrequently happen, it seems to be a matter of indifference, whether a man answers by rule or at a venture. He that stumbles upon the right side of the question, is just as useful to his client as he that arrives at the same end by regular approaches, and is conducted to the mark he aims at by the greatest authorities.

These violent attacks of a distemper so of ten fatal are very alarming to all who esteem and respect the Chancellor as he deserves. A life of confinement and of anxious attention to important objects, where the habit is bilious to such a terrible degree, threatens to be but a short one; and I wish he may not be made a text for men of reflection to moralize upon; affording a conspicuous instance of the transient and fading nature of all human accomplishments and attainments.

Yours affectionately, W. C.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN.

Olney, May 8, 1780.

My dear Friend My scribbling humor has of late been entirely absorbed in the passion for land-cape-drawing. It is a most amusing art. and, like every other art, requires much practice and attention.

Nil sine multo

Vita labore dedit mortalibus. Excellence is providentially placed beyond the reach of indolence, that success may be the reward of industry, and that idleness may be punished with obscurity and disgrace. So long as I am pleased with an employment I am capable of unwearied application, because my feelings are all of the intense kind: I never received a little pleasure from anything in my life; if I am delighted, it is in the extreme. The unhappy consequence of this temperament is, that my attachment to any occupation seldom outlives the novelty of it. That nerve of my imagination, that feels the touch of any particular amusement, twangs under the energy of the pressure with so much vehemence, that it soon becomes sensible of weariness and fatigue. Hence I draw An unfavorable prognostic, and expect that I shall shortly be constrained to look out for something else. Then perhaps I may string the harp again, and be able to comply with your demand.

Now for the visit you propose to pay us, and propose not to pay us, the hope of which

plays upon your paper, like a jack-o-lantern upon the ceiling. This is no mean simile, for Virgil (you remember) uses it. 'Tis here, 'tis there, it vanishes, it returns, it dazzles you, a cloud interposes, and it is gone. However just the comparison, I hope you will contrive to spoil it, and that your final determination will be to come. As to the masons you expect, bring them with you-bring brick, bring mortar, bring everything, that would oppose itself to your journey--all shall be welcome. I have a green-house that is too small, come and enlarge it; build me a pinery; repair the garden-wall, that has great need of your asmuch; so far from thinking you and your sistance; do anything, you cannot do too train troublesome, we shall rejoice to see you, upon these or upon any other terms you can propose. But, to be serious--you is before you that the party will not have will do well to consider that a long summer such another opportunity to meet this great while--that you may finish your masonry should not begin this month, but that you long enough before winter, though you cannot always find your brother and sister Powley at Olney. These and some other considerations, such as the desire we have to see you, and the pleasure we expect from seeing you all together, may, and I think ought, to overcome your scruples.

I

don's History of the Rebellion, I thought, (and From a general recollection of Lord Clarenremember I told you so,) that there was a striking resemblance between that period and the present. But I am now reading, and have read three volumes of, Hume's History, one of which is engrossed entirely by that subject. There I see reason to alter my opinion, and the seeming resemblance has disappeared upon a more particular information. Charles succeeded to a long train of arbitrary princes, whose subjects had tamely acquiesced in the despotism of their masters till their privileges were all forgot. He did but tread in their steps, and exemplify the principles in which he had been brought up, when he oppressed his people. But, just at that time, unhappily for the monarch, the subject began to see, and to see that he had a right to property and freedom. This marks a sufficient difference between the disputes of that day and the present. But there was another main cause of that rebellion, which at this time does not operate at all. The king was devoted to the hierarchy; his subjects were puritans and would not bear it. Every circumstance of ecclesiastical order and discipline was an abomination to them, and, in his esteem, an indispensable duty; and, though at last he was obliged to give up many things, he would not abolish episcopacy, and till that were done his concessions could have no conciliating effect. These two concurring causes

were, indeed, sufficient to set three kingdoms in a flame. But they subsist not now, nor any other, I hope, notwithstanding the bustle made by the patriots, equal to the production of such terrible events.*

Yours, my dear friend,

W. C.

The correspondence of the poet with his cousin Mrs. Cowper was at this time resumed, after an interval of ten years. She was deeply afflicted by the loss of her brother, Frederick Madan, an officer who died in America, after having distinguished himself by poetical talents as well as by military

virtues.

TO MRS. COWPER.

Olney, May 10, 1780. My dear Cousin, I do not write to comfort you; that office is not likely to be well performed by one who has no comfort for himself; nor to comply with an impertinent ceremony, which in general might well be spared upon such occasions; but because I would not seem indifferent to the concerns of those I have so much reason to esteem and love. If I did not sorrow for your brother's death, I should expect that nobody would for mine; when I knew him, he was much beloved, and I doubt not continued to be so.

To live and die together is the lot of a few happy families, who hardly know what a separation means, and one sepulchre serves them all; but the ashes of our kindred are dispersed indeed. Whether the American Gulf has swallowed up any other of my relations, I know not; it has made

[blocks in formation]

Olney, May 10, 1780. My dear Friend,-If authors could have lived to adjust and authenticate their own text, a commentator would have been a useless creature. For instance--if Dr. Bentley had found, or opined that he had found, the word tube, where it seemed to present itself to you, and had judged the subject worthy of his critical acumen, he would either have justified the corrupt reading, or have substi

*To those who contemplate the course of modern events, and the signs of the times, there may be a doubt whether the sentiment here expressed is equally applicable in the present age. May the union of good and wise men be the means, under the Providence of God, of averting every threatening danger.

tuted some invention of his own, in defence of which he would have exerted all his polemical abilities, and have quarrelled with half the literati in Europe. Then suppose the writer himself, as in the present case, to interpose, with a gentle whisper, thus-" If you look again, doctor, you will perceive, that what appears to you to be tube is neither more nor less than the monosyllable ink, but I wrote it in great haste, and the want of sufficient precision in the character has occasioned your mistake; you will be satisfied, especially when you see the sense elucidated by the explanation."-But I question whether the doctor would quit his ground, or allow any author to be a competent judge in his own case. The world, however, would acquiesce immediately, and vote the critic useless.

James Andrews, who is my Michael Angelo, pays me many compliments on my success in the art of drawing, but I have not yet the vanity to think myself qualified to furnish your apartment. If I should ever attain to the degree of self-opinion requisite to such an undertaking, I shall labor at it with pleas ure. I can only say, though I hope not with the affected modesty of the above-mentioned Dr. Bentley, who said the same thing,

[blocks in formation]

Olney, June 2, 1780. Dear Madam,-When I write to Mr. Newton, he answers me by letter; when I write to you, you answer me in fish. I return you many thanks for the mackerel and lobster. They assured me, in terms as intelligible as pen and ink could have spoken, that you still remember Orchard-side; and, though they never spoke in their lives, and it was still less to be expected from them that they should speak being dead, they gave us an assurance of your affection that corresponds exactly with that which Mr. Newton expresses towards us in all his letters.-For my own part, I never in my life began a letter more at a venture than the present. It is possible that I may finish it, but perhaps more than proba. ble that I shall not. I have had several indifferent nights, and the wind is easterly; *Cowper's fable of the Raven concluded this letter. † Private correspondence.

two circumstances so unfavorable to me in all my occupations, but especially that of writing, that it was with the greatest difficulty I could even bring myself to attempt it. You have never yet perhaps been made acquainted with the unfortunate Tom F-'s misadventure. He and his wife, returning from Hanslope fair, were coming down Weston-lane; to wit, themselves, their horse, and their great wooden panniers, at ten o'clock at night. The horse having a lively imagination and very weak nerves, fancied he either saw or heard something, but has never been able to say what. A sudden fright will impart activity and a momentary vigor even to lameness itself. Accordingly he started and sprang from the middle of the road to the side of it, with such surprising alacrity, that he dismounted the gingerbread baker and his gingerbread wife in a moment. Not contented with this effort, nor thinking himself yet out of danger, he proceeded as fast as he could to a full gallop, rushed against the gate at the bottom of the lane, and opened it for himself, without perceiving that there was any gate there. Still he galloped, and with a velocity and momentum continually increasing, till he arrived in Olney. I had been in bed about ten minutes, when I heard the most uncommon and unaccountable noise that can be imagined. It was, in fact, occasioned by the clattering of tin pattypans and a Dutch oven against the sides of the panniers. Much gingerbread was picked up in the street, and Mr. Lucy's windows were broken all to pieces. Had this been all, it would have been a comedy, but we learned the next morning that the poor woman's collar-bone was broken, and she has hardly been able to resume her occupation since.

What is added on the other side, if I could have persuaded myself to write sooner, would have reached you sooner; 'tis about ten days old. . . .

[blocks in formation]

Now you

taining, and clever, and so forth. must know I love praise dearly, especially from the judicious, and those who have so much delicacy themselves as not to offend mine in giving it. But then, I found this consequence attending, or likely to attend, the eulogium you bestowed-if my friend thought me witty before, he shall think me ten times more witty hereafter-where I joked once, I will joke five times, and, for one sensible remark, I will send him a dozen. Now this foolish vanity would have spoiled me quite, and would have made me as disgusting a letter-writer as Pope, who seems to have thought that unless a sentence was well turned, and every period pointed with some conceit, it was not worth the carriage. Accordingly he is to me, except in a very few instances, the most disagreeable maker of epistles that ever I met with. I was willing therefore to wait till the impression your commendation had made upon the foolish part of me was worn off, that I might scribble away as usual, and write my uppermost thoughts, and those only.

You are better skilled in ecclesiastical law than I am.-Mrs. P. desires me to inform her, whether a parson can be obliged to take an apprentice. For some of her husband's opposers, at D, threaten to clap one upon him. Now I think it would be rather hard if clergymen, who are not allowed to exercise any handicraft whatever, should be subject to such an imposition. If Mr. P. was a cordwainer or a breeches-maker all the week and a preacher only on Sundays, it would seem reasonable enough in that case that he should take an apprentice if he chose it. But even then, in my poor judgment, he ought to be left to his option. If they mean by an apprentice a pupil whom they will oblige him to hew into a parson, and, after chipping away the block that hides the minister within, to qualify him to stand erect in a pulpitthat, indeed, is another consideration. But

still we live in a free country, and I cannot bring myself even to suspect that an English divine can possibly be liable to such compulsion. Ask your uncle, however; for he is wiser in these things than either of us.

I thank you for your two inscriptions, and like the last the best; the thought is just and fine but the two last lines are sadly damaged by the monkish jingle of peperit and reperit. I have not yet translated them, nor do I promise to do it, though at some idle hour perhaps I may. In return, I send you a translation of a simile in the Paradise Lost. Not having that poem at hand, I cannot refer you to the book and page, but you may hunt for it, if you think it worth your while. It begins—

"So when from mountain tops the dusky clouds Ascending," &c.

« PredošláPokračovať »